


A Hole Heap of Trouble

by eutrash (AreteNike)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Comedy, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Love Confessions, Shenanigans, VLD Rarepair Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 11:56:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11463093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreteNike/pseuds/eutrash
Summary: A couple of emotionally unaware idiots with communication issues fall into holes and sort out their feelings. Eventually.





	A Hole Heap of Trouble

**Author's Note:**

> gift for @ironarchangel on twitter for the vld rarepair exchange!!

Keith is in a predicament.

For one, his partner this mission is Pidge. This shouldn’t be a problem, except that lately he can’t stop acting weird around her, and he can’t figure out _why_. Sometimes her mere presence is distracting; sometimes, like right now, he's hesitant to tell her something she should know for fear of looking like an idiot.

Two, the planet they're on seems to be abandoned, though the distress signal they came to investigate is still running along with some sort of jamming tech that's preventing him from contacting the castle out in orbit. The only one he can talk to right now is Pidge (and his lion).

Three, this city is apparently completely surrounded by traps, and he's just fallen into one.

He's not hurt; his jetpack slowed down his descent, but it's not strong enough to overcome gravity. The walls of the pit are smooth metal and unclimbable, and even the lights are set flush into the wall and too low to be useful as handholds anyway.

If it were Pidge down here, she could probably crack one open and hack her way out of here somehow. But she's not down here, Keith is, so he can't.

He does break into one of the lights, just to see, but it accomplishes nothing except to put it out, making the dim pit even dimmer.

"Keith?" Pidge's voice comes over the comm. "What was that noise?"

"Just debris," he says carefully. Yeah, there's no way he can tell her. Because... he doesn’t want to deal with her relentless teasing? That has to be it.

"Okay. Tell me if you find anything cool."

"Of course."

Red offers to come get him, but he declines, for now. He's not sure where Pidge is exactly but she's probably still close enough to notice if his lion takes off.

He just has to find a way out on his own.

* * *

Pidge has a problem.

She’s been feeling really weird around Keith lately, and it’s starting to get in the way of things. Things like asking him for help, because she's not a damsel in distress, that's lame. He thinks she's competent and she's not going to do anything to disprove that.

This is its own problem, too, but right now the big problem is that she's fallen into a pit. And she can't call the castle for help because the signal's jammed, and she can't call her lion for help because they both came in Red. So she's going to have to find a way out on her own.

It's almost pitch black down here; with the light from her armor and bayard she found a spot on the wall that _might_ be a light, but there's no apparent way to turn it on, and when she cracked open the cover she didn't find anything she could work with. Just a couple of basic wires, no computers or any way to follow the wires to their power source.

She hopes Keith _doesn't_ find anything cool to show her, because then she'll probably have to admit she fell in a goddamn hole.

She tries using her bayard's grappling hook capabilities next, only for it to clang uselessly against the metal walls far above (but not far enough, either). She tests it against the walls nearby; they must have some kind of magnetic properties, because they repel it completely. So that won't work either. Maybe Keith with his bayard would be able to make handholds and climb out, but she can't.

She sits down cross-legged and stares glumly into the darkness. Think, Pidge, think, there's gotta be a way out of this.

Think.

Thiiiink...

"This is boring," she mutters.

"What?" says Keith. Shoot, right, her helmet's still on.

"There's nothing here," she says quickly. "Everything's empty and dark." Like this pit. Hey, it's not a lie.

"Yeah," he agrees. "We don't have to stay here long, I don't think we'll find anything. But we should check, just in case."

"Right." Meaning he'll be checking, because she's stuck down a damn hole. If she can't get herself out she'll have to pretend she fell in on her way back, or something. That'd be less embarrassing than admitting she's been here the whole time.

* * *

It's been half an hour at least, and Keith has pretty much given up on anything other than sitting on the floor of the pit, staring up at the sky far above.

He tried climbing up the wall with his bayard in one hand and his Marmora knife in the other, but even in sword form the knife couldn't get through the wall very well, and he couldn't get much traction with his boots. He only moved upwards incrementally and was already exhausted by the time he got a few feet up.

So his current plan is to wait until Pidge is far enough away and ask Red for help.

"Found anything yet?" he asks, staring blankly at the far wall.

"No," Pidge groans almost immediately. "Just a lot of dust."

The pit's pretty dusty, too. "This place has probably already been picked over by scavengers."

"Yeah, I figured, so I started poking around and looking in weird places. I still haven't _found_ anything, though."

"How far into the city are you?"

"Uhh..." She pauses, and there's a shuffling noise, presumably as she leaves whatever building she's in to check her progress. "Not very. You?"

Damn. "I'm not very far in either." He is pretty far _down_ though.

"Ugh, this is gonna take _forever_."

No kidding. He's gonna be sitting here for hours at this rate. Unless he sucks it up and admits he's trapped.

Or he could just call Red and explain away the noise... or pretend he didn't hear it somehow... he's not really a good enough liar to pull that off, though. Besides, Pidge might still be able to see her from wherever she is. He's just gonna have to wait.

"Have _you_ found anything?"

Keith swallows back the momentary panic as he scrambles for something to say. "Uh, no," he manages, keeping his voice even. He tries to visualize what he saw _before_ he fell in the damn hole. "Just a bunch of empty houses so far."

"Same."

"Well... keep me updated."

"Will do."

He gets up and starts pacing around the pit again. He can probably hold out for another half hour or so; that might be long enough. It better be, because patience has never been his strong suit.

* * *

Patience definitely isn't Pidge's strong suit.

It's been around an hour now, and she's thinking she's gonna have to give in and say something. For one, she's bored out of her mind. For two, she really has to pee.

Besides, Keith is the second best person she could be admitting her situation to, after Hunk and only before Shiro because Shiro gets brotherly when they're alone and what are big brothers for if not to tease their little sisters. Or so says Matt.

At least it isn’t Lance, he’d never let her live this down.

...The point is, Keith will probably be cool about it. She can spare a little dignity now if it means not peeing on the floor like a frightened chihuahua.

So she sighs, and says, "Keith?"

"Yeah?" he responds.

She hesitates. Does she _really_ have to do this?

 _Yes,_ says her bladder, emphatically.

"Pidge?"

"I have a confession to make. It's... important."

"Uh... okay? Is this a face-to-face sorta thing, or are you gonna do it over the comms?"

Why does that make her stomach twist in knots? She half-laughs. "Over the comms. Kinda has to be."

"Okay." He sounds relieved. Pidge wonders if she should be insulted. "Shoot."

"Okay, so," she says, and takes a deep breath. "I kind of. Fell. Into a hole."

There's a pause, and then Keith starts laughing.

"Hey!" she yelps. Normally she likes the sound of his laugh, but not like _this._

 _Wait._ She… likes…?

"No, no, sorry," he says quickly, interrupting her thoughts. "It's just, so did I."

That takes a moment to process, particularly while her mind is still reeling from the realization this is a _crush._ "...What?"

"I fell in a hole too. I've kinda..." His voice gets quieter, sheepish. "...been here the whole time."

"...Then you were making everything up _too?_ " she squeaks.

"Yes—wait, you were? How long have you been down there?"

"Since practically the beginning. Oh my god."

"We _both_ —"

"—Fell into these stupid traps—"

"—And made things up so the other wouldn't know? Holy shit."

Pidge giggles. It sets Keith off laughing again, and then she's laughing fully too, until their mirth is reverberating almost painfully through the comms.

She finally calms. Keith takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

"No one can ever know about this," says Pidge.

"Definitely," says Keith.

"Okay, so, how do we get out? Since apparently we can't help each other."

"Red offered to come get me earlier," says Keith. "We can go get you too, after."

Well at least he has to be rescued, too. "My hero," she says drily, though she’s certain her face is bright red. Good thing he can’t see her. He snorts.

"She's on her way," he adds after a moment.

"Good, because I gotta pee."

"Just go on the floor? There's no one around to care."

" _No!_ "

* * *

Keith surreptitiously looks Pidge over when he picks her up, as she greets him and makes a beeline for the bathroom in the back. She doesn't look injured, so that's good.

He also feels better about falling in a hole knowing that she did too. And simultaneously more like an idiot about sitting there for an hour pretending he was still exploring, when he could've said something and gotten them both out in five minutes or less.

Red smugly agrees about that. He tells her to shut up.

"Whew!" Pidge exclaims as she reenters the cockpit. "Thank god that's over with. I can't believe we _both_ fell in."

"Yeah," says Keith. Red idly circles over the city; they should head back down and actually look around, but he's in no hurry. "Definitely not what I was expecting to hear when you said you had a confession to make."

"...What _were_ you expecting to hear?" she asks, an odd tone to her voice. It gives him pause. What _was_ he expecting?

"Uh. Not that," he says, and prays she'll drop it.

She doesn't. "Yeah, but what?"

“Dunno!” What kind of thing do people usually confess? “Something… personal, I guess.”

"A _love_ confession?" she squeaks. Oh fuck, he _was_ expecting one. Or… hoping for one.

"Maybe!?"

Shit. This is a crush, he has a _crush_ on her.

"W-what made you think that?"

"I don't know! Maybe I—" Wait, shit, abort, _abort._

There's a silence that stretches just a little too long.

"Maybe you what," Pidge says quietly.

"Nothing."

"You were gonna say something."

"No I wasn't."

"Yeah you were."

"No I wasn't."

"You're blushing."

He glances up at her. "So are you."

"I am not!"

"Yes you are."

"Am not."

"Am too."

"Am not."

"Am too."

"Am not."

"Argh!" Keith throws his hands up. "I like you, okay!?"

Oh god, he said it. And all of thirty seconds after realizing it in the first place. Pidge is silent.

" _Shit_."

She giggles. He frowns up at her—she's still staring at him, one hand over her mouth that's doing absolutely nothing to muffle her laughter—and swats at her arm half-heartedly. He gets it, she doesn't reciprocate, he's spent enough time today feeling stupid.

She catches his hand.

"So do I!" she says around the giggles, finally. "I mean, I like you too."

"...Oh." That is... definitely more than he'd hoped for. "Really?"

"Yeah, dude." She pauses, giving one final hiccup of a giggle. "Oh god, we did it again."

"Did what?"

"I think we have communication issues."

He kind of wants to protest that, but after the hour he spent in a goddamn pit... maybe not. "No kidding."

She squeezes his hand, and he squeezes back, and grins. Okay. This is good. Problem solved. They'll have to figure out... whatever this is, but the secret's out.

They should probably get back to work, but she's still holding his hand. Maybe a little longer...

"We still need to search this place, at least a little," he says finally, reluctantly.

"Ugh."

"And _this_ time, we're going to tell each other if we fall down any holes, or anything else. Deal?"

"Deal." Pidge grins.

* * *

Not ten minutes later, Pidge steps incautiously into a room, and the door swings shut behind her. She pushes it but it doesn't budge; the room is windowless and doesn't seem to have any other doors, either. _Damn_ it.

"Uh, Pidge?" Keith says. He probably heard the door. Okay. This time she's going to tell him she's trapped, no lying or delaying. She can do this. No shame.

"Yeah?" she says.

"I think I'm trapped," he says.

Figures.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://maternalcube.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/arete_nike)


End file.
